Part 28

"Oh, Spring-beauty! Oh, I know! Just bushels of them--Davy and I found over by the lake last spring! Little white flowers with pink lines in them, and smell--just a little tiny smell--so--so springy and wild. Oh, I just love Spring-beauties! But I'm sorry my nice rose-moss is pursley. Is it, Papa? Is it really a sister to that ugly weed?"

"Suppose you bring a branch of each over to the bench here--one with flowers on it."

Prue brought a sprig of her precious rose-moss, and Davy a large piece of the pursley from the pile he had just cut down. The Chief Gardener took them and put them together.

"You see, they are a good deal alike," he said, "though the leaves are different--Miss Portulaca's being the finer."

Then he took one of the tiny pursley flowers and put it under the magnifying-glass, and let the children look. Yes, it was almost exactly like the beautiful flower of the rose-moss, only smaller. Each flower had two green sepals and five colored petals, also five stamens, so they knew it was an exogen, though it would have been harder to tell this from the thick, pulpy leaves and stem. The little seed-pod of each had a tiny cap which lifted off when the seeds were ripe, leaving a perfect cup, heaping full.

"You see, children," said the Chief Gardener, "weeds do not care to be either useful or ornamental. So they become rank and common, and lose their beautiful flowers. But somehow they never have any less seed. They want to grow just as thickly as they can, and however small their flowers are, the seed-pods are always full to the brim."

"Well," said Prue, "I'm sure there can't be any of my flowers relation to chickweed. I never can get that out of my beds."

The Chief Gardener thought a minute.

"Why, yes, Prue," he said, "that's Cousin Stella; I suppose she came to see the beautiful Dian and to make her all the trouble she can."

"Oh, Papa! what do you mean by Stella and Dian?"

"Well, Stellaria is chickweed, and she's a cousin to Dianthus, your lovely pinks. I suppose you might call them Stella and Dian, for short. They are not very nearly related, but they do belong to the same family, and perhaps they were once more alike. I don't suppose beautiful Dian would own Stella, but Stella (or perhaps her weed friends call her Chick), is a great nuisance and makes Dian and her friends all the trouble she can."

"Papa," said Davy, who had been silent all this time, "are there really any plant families that don't have wild members who behave badly and become just weeds?"

"I don't remember any real weeds in the Lily family, Davy, though almost any plant will become a weed if allowed to run wild and live in fence corners, like a tramp. They become prodigals then, like the man's son in the Bible. And sometimes they come back to the garden, as the prodigal son did, to become well-behaved and useful flowers again. Of course, there are many others that have always lived wild in the woods and fields, and are not called weeds, because they do not spread and destroy other plants. These are our wild flowers, and the world would be poor, indeed, without them. Sometimes we bring them into the garden, and make them grow larger and call them by a new name. And sometimes, I am sorry to say, a sweet wild flower will suddenly spread and overrun the fields and become almost a weed. I am afraid our beautiful daisies are becoming a weed to a good many farmers. Those fields that are like banks of snow, and so beautiful to us, must worry the man who owns them and cannot get rid of the millions of 'rare Marguerites!'"

Little Prue sighed.

"Oh, dear," she said, "it's just too bad that there isn't some flower, or somebody, or something that can be just every bit good, all the time, to everybody."

The Chief Gardener smiled.

"We can only do our very best," he said.

AUGUST

AUGUST

THERE ARE JUST TWO KINDS OF LEAVES

A GOOD many things were ripe in August, and some of the things were through blooming. Prue did not plant a great deal. It was too hot to dig long in the sun, and then there did not seem to be much in the way of flowers that could be planted so late. Davy planted a few turnips and some late beans and salad, because there was time for these, but even Davy found it pleasanter to sit in the shade, where there was a breeze, and pull plants to pieces and talk about Exogens and Endogens and the different parts of things, than to hoe and dig and rake on an August day.

The Chief Gardener heard quite loud voices under the peach-trees, one warm afternoon. Prue and Davy were not really quarreling, but they seemed to be a good deal in earnest about something. The Chief Gardener went over there.

"What is all the excitement?" he asked.

Davy held up and waved a large stem of very coarse grass.

"It's an Endogen," he said, very decidedly, "isn't it, Papa?"

"It isn't at all, is it, Papa?" eagerly asked little Prue.

The Chief Gardener took the plumey stem and sat down.

"Why do you think it is an Endogen, Davy?" he asked.